M3 P3 
I Copy 1 



63d Congress, ) 

'Bd Session. f 



SENATE. 



Report 
No. 391. 



REGULATING THE USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS 
AND GROUNDS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



March 30, 1914.— Ordered to be printed. 



H.S. Ok^. 2;^,-. , 

Mr. HoLLiS; from the Committee on the District of CoKmibia, siib- 

mitted the folio win 2; 



REPORT. 

[To accompany S. 4316.] 

The Committee on the District of Columbia, to which was referred 
the bill (S. 4316) to regulate the use of public school buildings and 
grounds in the District. of Columbia, having considered the same, 
report it back favorably mthout amendment and recommend that 
the bill do pass. 

This subject has been studied, the proponents of the legislation 
have had the advice of such authorities on the subject as Mr. Edward 
J. Ward, adviser in civic and social center development of the uni- 
versity extension department of the University of Wisconsin, and 
the bill now recommended for passage (S. 4316) has the indorsement 
of the board of education and of more than 100 ^ civic organizations, 
representatives of which met at the White House on December 1, 
1913, at the invitation of Mss Margaret Woodrow Wilson. Miss 
Wilson, who has for some years been active in promoting social and 
civic center development throughout the country, is the chairman 
of the committee representing all of the local organizations advocat- 
ing this legislation. 

Following is the letter from the Commissioners of the District of 
Columbia indorsing this bill : 

Office Commissionees of the District of Columbia, 

Washington, February 5, 1914. 
Hon. John Walter Smith, 

Chairman Committee on the District of Columhia, 

United States Senate. 
My Dear Sir: Replying totlie request of February 4 of the Committee on the 
District of Columbia of the United States Senate for a report on Senate bill 4316, the 
Commissioners of the District of Columbia desire to state: 

They are in hearty sympathy Avith the purposes of the bill and most earnestly and 
urgently recommend its passage at the earliest possible date. The bill is the same as 

I This number included women's clubs, philanthropic societies, etc., whereas the 56 organizations re- 
ferred to in the District Commissioners' letter are local citizens' associations. 



}2 EEGULATING USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDmGS;,. Eig. 

that forwarded by the Pistrirt Comroissioners on December 22, 1913, to youi com- 
mittee and the Committee on the District of Cokimbia of the House of Representativea 
with the recommendation that it be enacted into law. It was drafted by a committee 
of men and women as a .result of a conference attended by the members of 56 civic 
or<Tanizatians of Wa^hindon and held in the White House at the suggestion and upon 
the invitation of }rigs /■''argaret AVilson, for the purpose of evolving just such a bill. 
The measure represents the best thought of a large number of men and women of 
Washington, and in the opinion of the commissioners it will, if enacted into law, 
result in the marked advancement of citizenship in the District of Columbia. 
Very respectfully. 

Board of Commissioners of District of Columbia, 
By 0. P. Newman, President. 

This social and civic center movement liad its beg:innings at 
Rochester, N. Y., as recently as February 15, 1907. Until that time 
practically all American cities followed the uneconomical policy of 
confining the use of the expensive school plant to its prim^ary purpose 
of the instruction of youth. Mention should be made of the S3^stem 
of free evening lectures for adults, given in the public schools of New 
York City since 1888. Having once begun the policy of organizing 
and focusing about the schoolhouse the civic, social, recreational, 
and adult educational activities of the community, the reasonableness 
and economy of this broader policy has so appealed to the practical 
sense of Americans that there is now a nation-wide demand for its 
adoption. Mr. Clarence A. Perry, of the Eussell Sage Foundation, 
and author of The Wider Use of the School Plant (New York Charities 
Publication Comxmittee, 1910), reports that in 1912-13 there were no 
less than 207 American cities which were affording some form of 
evening educational, civic, and recreational privileges for adults. 
The lines of these evening activities, not parts of night-school work 
or limited to pupils, together with the number of public-school build- 
ings utilized, he reports to have been as follows: 

Schools. 

1. Public lectures and entertainments (not school exercises) 981 

2. Adult clubs, societies, or associations (not solely teachers) meeting in school 

rooms ' 706 

3. Open meetings for the adult discussion of local problem^s 496 

4. Athletics, calisthenics, indoor active games or folk dancing 474 

5. Club work among young people 369 

6. Reading or quiet-games room 198 

7. Social dancing for old or young 190 

8. Singing classes, orchestras, or other musical organizations not limited to 

pupils _. 174 

9. Handicraft or domestic science classes not a part of evening-school work 153 

In addition to the foregoing. Mi. Perry reports that in the year 
1912-13— 

Balloting during elections was held in 529 schoolhouses, a.nd 259 
buildings were used for registering voters. 

Political meetings or ralHes to the nmnber of 481 took place in 
school edifices. 

Motion-picture entertainments were given in school buildings on 
626 occasions. 

The exhibits held in school buildings numbered 302, of which 175 
were devoted, to art and manual-training subjects, 76 were held in the 
interest of physical welfare, and the remainder were of a miscellaneous 
character. 

In a similar report for 1911-12 Mr. Perry found that 100 cities 
utilized public-school buildings as public library branches; in many 

a OF D. 

APH M-im 



«<l 



^ 



EEGULATING USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS^ ETC. 3 

cases every school building in the city was a library station or branch 
library, even when there was no other social or civic center activity. 
The intelligent citizens of the District of Columbia saw this move- 
ment taken up by the other progressive cities of the country, such as 
Baltimore, New Orleans, Louisville, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Den- 
ver, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Minneapolis, St. Paul, 
Jersey City, New York, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, 
Cincinnati, Columbus, and Milwaukee. When, however, they at- 
ternpted to utilize their own public-school buildings for social and 
civic centers they were met with the following provision of law, which 
seemed to forbid: 

That hereafter the public-school buildings of the District of Columbia shall be used 
for no purpose whatever other than those directly connected with the public-school 
system of the District. (27 Stat. L., p. 546.) 

This bill not only specifically repeals the prohibition but empowers 
the board of education to organize the machinery, without additional 
expense to the Public Treasury, for undertaking the civic and social 
center activities that are embraced in similar movements in other 
cities. It should be noted that the power to control the use of the 
public-school buildings and grounds and confine their use to orderly 
and seemly purposes is completely in the hands of the board of 
education. 

It is understood that certain objections have been made to pro- 
vision in this bill for the use of the school buildings as branches of the 
public library, on the ground (it is supposed) that this will involve 
large expense. Of course it is evident that no appropriation for this 
or any other of the enumerated activities is provided or authorized 
by the bill. It should also be pointed out that the library clause 
confers no new power not now m the hands of the library authorities. 
The act creating the free public library (29 Stat. L., p. 244) provides 
that it shall be a "supplement of the public educational system,'' of 
the District. Under that provision of law the public library has for 
several years sent books to pubhc-school buildings for home circu- 
lation to children and their parents. Durmg the last fiscal year 
76,000 volumes were circulated in this way through 82 schools from 
a stock of 6,000 volumes. Moreover, the library has with the fhiancial 
assistance of parent-teachers associations, conducted library stations 
or branches at the Tenley School, the John Eaton School (Cleveland 
Park), and the Hyde School (Georgetown), and has just arranged to 
establish a similar enterprise at the Wallach School (D Street SE.). 
To ehmmate the library clause from this bill would not deprive the 
library of its present permission to conduct such enterprises. The 
clause should, however, be retamed, since the bill attempts to enu- 
merate the principal activities proper to social and civic centers, and 
the library feature is of vital importance to the best development of 
any sucJi social or civic center. 

Mr. Edward J. Ward, adviser in civic and social center develop- 
ment, University of Wisconsin, has already been mentioned as 
having advised the local committee on the occasion of his visit to 
Washington to address the Monday Evening Club on this subject. 

Mr. Ward started this movement in Rochester, N. Y., in 1907. 
He is the author of the standard book on the subject, The Social 



4 EEGULATING USE OP PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS^ ETC. 

Center (New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1913). The following is his 
summary of the various activities in the social and civile center: 

1. The school is the logical center of the precinct, just as the city 
hall is the center of the city, and the capital is the logical center of 
the State and Nation. The school should therefore be the polling 
place of the precinct. 

2. The social center furnishes a place of deliberation and provides 
an opportunity for the people to discuss in a friendly manner the 
problems vital to their community. 

It is also a place for: 

3. The voters' league, uniting the people for civic improvement. 

4. A public lecture course, providing the best talent available, for 
the education and entertainment of the people. 

5. The branch public library, extending the benefits of the public 
library into every neighborhood in the city. 

6. Public art exhibitions, cultivating the sesthetic taste of the 
people. 

7. Music centers, providing concerts by high-grade talent and 
furnishing an opportunity for local musicians to entertain. 

8. The festival center — a logical place in which to celebrate the 
national holidays for the inspiration of patriotism and community 
interest. 

9. A recreation center, providing innocent dances, gymnastics and 
games, and the organization of clubs. 

10. An employment center, providing a place to bring employer 
and employee in touch with one another. 

11. The establishment of a branch of the health board in the line 
of a medical adviser for the community to look after matters per- 
taining to the general health. 

12. A place for all the people of the community to become ac- 
quainted. 

In October, 1911, the fii'st national conference on social and civic 
center development met at Madison, Wis., under the auspices of the 
university extension division of the University of Vvisconsin. Dele- 
gates were ])resent from all parts of the United States, representing 
city clubs, boards of education, welfare movements, churches, uni- 
versities, and associations for social and civic betterment. It is 
reported that a new enthusiasm and hope for the future permeated 
the air, and that the keynote of the convention was that the civic 
and social center movement in the United States is the beginning of 
a new democracy in extending the spirit of interest in public affairs 
to the homes of the people. The meeting resulted m the organiza- 
tion of the Social Center Association of America, whose purpose is '*to 
promote the development of intelligent public spu-it through com- 
munity use of the common schoolhouse for free discussion of public 
questions and all wholesome civic educational and recreational 
activities." 

President Wilson, who was present at the meeting as governor of 
New Jersey, said: "What I see in this movement is the recovery of 
the constructive and creative genius of the American people." The 
address of President Wilson, delivered at Madison, Wis., and the 
address of Mr. Edward J. Ward, delivered before the National Educa- 
tion Association at St. Louis, are appended hereto and made a 
part of this report. 



THE SOCIAL CEI5ITER: A MEAITS OF COMMOK UNDEESTANDIlTa. 

An address delivered by Hon. AVOODROW WILSON, governor of New Jersey, before the First 
National Conference on Civic and Social Center Development, at Madison, Wis., October 25, 1911. 

I do not feel that I have deserved the honor of standmg here upon 
this occasion to make what has been courteously called the principal 
address, because five months ago I did not know anything about this 
movement. I have taken no active part in it, and I am not going to 
assume, as those who have preceded me have assumed, that you know 
what the movement is. I want, if for no other purpose than to clarify 
my own thinking, to state as briefly as possible what the movement is. 

The object of the movement is to make the schoolhouse the civic 
center of the community, at any rate in such communities as are sup- 
plied with no other place of common resort. 

READY FOR USE— THE MEANS OF CONCERTING COMMON LIFE. 

It is obvious that the schoolhouse is in most communities used only 
during certain hours of the dsij, those hours when the rest of the com- 
munity is busily engaged in bread-winning work. It occurred to the 
gentlemen who started this movement that inasmuch as the school- 
houses belonged to the community it was perfectly legitimate that 
the community should use them for its own entertainment and school- 
ing when the young people were not occupying them. And that, 
therefore, it would be a good idea to have there all sorts of gatherings 
for social purposes, for purposes of entertainment, for purposes of 
conference, for any legitimate thing that might bring neighbors and 
friends together in the schooUiouses. That, I understand it, in its 
simplest terms is the civic-center movement — that the schoolhouses 
might be made a place of meeting — in short, where by meeting each 
other the people of a community might know each other, and by 
knowing each other might concert a common hfe, a common action. 

SPONTANEOUS DEVELOPMENT. 

The study of the civic center is the study of the spontaneous life of 
communities. What you do is to open the schoolhouse and hght it m 
the evening and say: "Here is a place where you are welcome to come 
and do anything that it occurs to you to do." 

And the mteresting thing about this movement is that a great many 
things have occurred to people to do in the schoolhouse, things social, 
things educational, things political — for one of the reasons why poli- 
tics took on a new complexion in the city in which this movement 
originated was that the people who could go into the schoolhouses at 
night knew what was going on in that city and insisted upon talking 
about it, and the minute they began talking about it niany things 
became impossible, for there are scores of things that must be put 
a stop to ui our politics that will stop the moment they are talked of 

5 



- 6 EEGULATIISrG USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDI]^GS_, tTG. 

where men will listen. The treatment for bad politics is exactly the 
modern treatment for tuberculosis — it is exposure to the open air. 

Now, you have to begin at the root of the matter in order to under- 
stand what it is you intend to serve by this movement. You intend to 
serve the life of communities, the life that is there, the life that you 
can not create, the life to Vvdiich 57-ou can only give release and oppor- 
tunity; and wherein does that life consist? That is the question that 
interests me. There can be no life in a community so long as its parts 
are segregated and separated. It is just as if you separated the organs 
of the human body and then expected them to produce life. You 
must open wide the channels of sympathy and communication be- 
tween them, you must make channels for the tides of life; if you clog 
them anyvfhere, if you stop them anywhere, why then the processes 
of disease set in, which are the processes of misunderstanding, which 
are the disconnections between the spiritual impulses of different 
sections of men. 

COMMON CENTEH ESSENTIAL TO COMMUNITY LIFE. 

Vi The very definition of community is a body of men who have things 
in common; who are conscious that they have thmgs in common; who 
judge those common things from a single point of view, namely, the 
point of view of general interest. Such a thmg as a community is 
unthinkable, therefore, unless you have close communication; there 
must be a vital interrelationship of parts, there must be a fusion, there 
must be a coordination, there must be a free intercourse, there must be 
such a contact as will constitute union itself before you will have the 
true course of the wholesome blood throughout the body. 

Therefore, when you analyze some of our communities you will 
see just how necessary it is to get their parts together. Take some 
of our great cities for example. Do you not realize by common 
gossip even the absolute disconnection of what we call their resi- 
dential sections from the rest of the city? Isn't it singular that 
while human beings live all over a city, we pick out a part, a place 
where there are luxurious and well-appointed houses, and call that 
the residential section ? As if nobody else lived anywhere in that 
city! That is the place where the most disconnected part and in 
some instances the most useless part of the community lives. There 
men do not know their next-door neighbors; there men do not 
want to know their next-door neighbors; there is no bond of sym- 
pathy; there is no bond of knowledge or common acquaintanceship, 

I am not speaking of these things to impeach a class, for I know 
of no just way in which to impeach a class. 

It is necessary that such portions of the community should be 
linked with the other portions; it is necessary that simple means 
should be found by which by an interchange of points of view we 
may get together, for the whole process of modern life, the whole 
process of modern politics, is a process by which we must exclude 
misunderstandings, exclude hostilities, exclude deadly rivalries, make 
men understand other men's interests, bring all men into common 
counsel, and so discover what is the common interestr - 

That is the problem of modern life which is so specialized that it is 
almost devitalized, so disconnected that the tides of life will not flow. 



BEGULATING USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS^ ETC. 7 

MEANS TO THE UNITY OF COMMITNITIES. 

My interest in this movement, as it has been described to me, has 
been touched with enthusiasm because I see in it a channel for the 
restoration of the unity of communities. Because I am told that 
things have already happened which bear promise of this very thing. 

I was told what is said to be a typical story of a very fine lady, 
a woman of very fine natural parts, but very fastidious, whose auto- 
mobile happened to be stalled one night in front of an open school- 
house where a meeting was going on over which her seamstress was 
presiding. She was induced by some acquaintances of hers whom 
she saw going into the building to go in, and was at first filled with 
disdain; she didn't Uke the looks of some of the people; there was 
too much mixture of the sort she didn't care to associate with — 
an employee of her own was presiding — but she was obliged to stay 
a Httle while; it was the most comfortable place to stay while her 
automobile was repaired; and before she could get away she had 
been touched with the generous contagion ot the place. Here 
were people of all sorts talldng about things that were interesting, 
that revealed to her things that she had never dreamed of before 
with regard to the vital common interests of persons whom she 
had always thought unUke herself, so that the community of the 
human heart was revealed to her, the singleness of human life. 

WORTH ANY EFFOUT TO PROMOTE. 

Now, if this thing does that, it is worth any effort to promote it. 
If it will do that, it is the means by which we shall create communi- 
ties. And nothing else will produce liberty. You can not have 
liberty where men do not want the same liberty, you can not have it 
where they are not in sympathy with one another, you can not have it 
where they do not understand one another, you can not have it when 
they are not seeldng common things by common means; you simply 
can not have it. We must study the means by which these things are 
produced. 

In the first place, don't you see that you produce communities by 
creating common feeling ? I know that a great emphasis is put upon 
the mind in our day, and as a university man I should perhaps not 
challenge the supremacy of the intellect; but I have never been con- 
vinced that mind was really monarch in our day, or in any day that 
I have yet read of; or, if it is monarch, it is one of the modern mon- 
archs that rules and reigns but does not govern. 

COMMON FEELING ESSENTIAL TO FRSS GOVERNMENT. 

What really controls our action is feeling. Wo are governed by the 
passions, and the most that we can manage by all our social and polit- 
ical endeavors is that the handsome passions shall be in the majority — 
the passion of sympathy, the passion of justice, the passion of fair 
dealing, the passion of unseMshness (if it may be elevated into a 
passion). If you can once see that a working majority is obtained 
lor the handsome passions, for the feelings that draw us together 
rather than for the feelings that separate us, then you have laid the 
foundation of a community and a free government ; and, therefore, if 
you can do nothing else in the community center than draw men 



8 REGULATING USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS^ ETOf 

together so tliat they will have common feeling, you will have set 
forward the cause of civilization and the cause of human freedom. 

As a basis of the coming feeling you must have a mutual compre- 
hension. The fundamental truth in modern life, as I analyze it, is a 
profound ignorance. I am not one of those who challenge the pro- 
moters of special interests on the ground that they are malevolent, 
that they are bad men; I challenge their leadership on the ground 
that they are ignorant men; that when you have absorbed yourself 
in a particular business through half your life you have no other point 
of view than the point of view of that business, and that, therefore, 
you are disqualified by ignorance from giving counsel as to the com- 
mon interests. 

A witty English writer once said: "If you chain a man's head to a 
ledger and knock off something from his wages every time he stops 
adding up, you can't expect him to have enlightened views about the 
antipodes." Simply, if you unmerse a man in a given undertaking, 
no matter how big that undertaking is, and keep him immersed for 
half a lifetime, you can't expect him to see any horizon, you can't 
expect him to see human life steadily or see it whole. 

MEANS TO LIBERAL EDUCATIOKT. 

I once made this statement, that a university was intended to make 
young people just as unlike their fathers as possible. By which I 
do not mean anything disrespectful to their fathers, but merely this, 
by the time a man is old enough to have children in college, his point 
of view is apt to have become so specialized that they would better be 
taken away from him and put in a place where their views of life will 
be regeneralized and they will be disconnected from the family and 
connected with the w^orld. That I understand to be the functicm of 
education, of the liberal education. 

Now, a kind of liberal education must underlie every wholesome 
political and social process, the kmd of liberal education which con- 
nects a man's feeling and his comprehension wdth the general run of 
mankind, which disconnects him from the special interests and mar- 
ries his thought to the common interests of great communities and of 
great cities and of great States and of great nations, and, if possible, 
with that brotherhood of man that transcends the boundaries of na- 
tions th ems elves . 

Those are the horizons, to my mind, of this social center movement, 
that they are going to unite the feelings and clarify the comprehension 
of communities, of bodies of men who draw together in conference. 

CONFERENCE ALWAYS MODIFIES AND IMPROVES THOUGHT. 

I would like to ask if this is not the experience of every person here 
who has ever acted in any conference of any kind. Did you ever go 
out of a conference with exactly the same views with which you went 
in ? If you did, I am sorry for you ; you must be thought-tight. For 
my part I can testify that I never carried a scheme into a conference 
without having it profoundly modified by the criticism of the other 
men in the conference and without recognizing when I came out that 
the product of the common council bestowed upon it was very much 
superior to any private thought that might have been used for its 



EEGULATING USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS^ ETC. 9 

development. The processes of attrition, the contributions to con- 
sensus of minds, the compromises of thought create those general 
movements which are the streams of tendency and the streams of 
development. 

WILL MAKE EASIER SOLUTIOI^ OF GHEAT PROBLEMS. 

And so it seems to me that what is going to be produced by this 
movement— not all at once, by slow and tedious stages, no doubt, 
but nevertheless very certainly in the end — is in the first place a 
release of common forces now undiscovered, now somewhere banked 
up, and now somewhere unavailable, the removal of barriers to the 
common understanding, the o|)ening of mind to mJnd, the clarifica- 
tion of the air and the release in that clarified air of forces that can 
live in it, and just so certainly as you release those forces you make 
easier the fundamental problem of modern society, which is the prob- 
lem of accommodating the various mterests in modern society to 
one another. 

ADJUSTMENT NECESSARY TO LIBERTY. 

I used to teach my classes in the university that liberty was a 
matter of adjustment, and I was accustomed to illustrate it in this 
way: When you have perfectly assembled the parts of a great steam 
engine, for example, then when it runs, you say that it runs free; 
that means that the adjustment is so perfect that the friction is 
reduced to a minimum, doesn't it? And the minute you twist any 
part out of alignment, the minute you lose adjustment, then there is 
a buckling up and the whole thing is rigid and useless. Now, to my 
mind, that is the image of human liberty; the individual is free in 
proportion to his perfect accommodation to the whole, or, to put it 
the other way, m proportion to the perfect adjustment of the whole 
to his life and interests. 

Take another illustration. You are sailing a boat. When do you 
say that she is running free, when you have thrown her up into the 
wuid ? No ; not at all. Every stick and stitch in her shivers, and 
you say she is in irons. Nature has grasped her and says, ''You can 
not go that way." But let her fall off, let the sheets fill, and see her 
ran like a bird skimming the waters. Why she is free ? Because she 
has adjusted herself to the great force of nature that is brewed with 
the breath of the wind. She is free in proportion as she is adjusted, 
as she is obedient, and so men are free in society m proportion as 
their interests are accommodated to one another, and that is the 
problem of liberty. 

ANALYSIS ACCOMPLISHED— NOW ASSEMBLED. 

Liberty as now expressed is unsatisfactory in this country and in 
other countries because there has not been a satisfactory adjustment, 
and you can not readjust the parts until you analyze them. Very 
well, we have analyzed them. Now, this movement is intended to 
contribute to an effort to assemble them, bring them together, let 
them look one another in the face, let them reckon with one another, 
and then they will cooperate, and not before. 

You can not bring adjustment into play until you have got the 
consent of the parts to act together, and then, when you have got 
S. Kept. 391, 63-2 2 



10 EEGULATING USE OP PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS^ ETC. 

tho adjiistiTLGnt, when you have discovered and released those forces 
and the,y have accommodated themselves to each other, you have 
that control which is the sovereignty of the people. 

There is no sovereignty of the people if the several sections of the 
people be . at loggerheads with one. a,nother. wSovereignty comes 
with cooperation; sovereignty comes with mutual protection; sov- 
ereignty comes with the quick pulses of sympathy; sovereignty 
comes by a common impulse. 

You say, and all men say, that great political changes are impend- 
ing in this country. Why do you say so ? Because everywhere you 
go you find men expressing the same judgment, alive to the same 
circumstances, determined to solve the problems by acting together, 
no matter what older bonds the,y may break, no matter what former 
prepossessions they may throw ofi, determined to get together and 
do the thing. 

ENLIGHTENED CONTItOL IN PLACE OF MANAGESIENT. 

And so you know that changes are impending because what was 
a body of scattered sentiment is now becoming a concentrated force, 
and so v/ith sympathy and understanding comes control, for, in place 
of this control of enlightened and sovereign opinions, we have had 
in the field of politics, as elsewhere, the reign of management, and 
management is compounded of these two things, secrecy plus con- 
centration. 

You can not manage a nation, you can not manage the people of 
a State, you can not manage a great population, you can mana,ge 
only some central force. What you do, therefore, if you want to 
manage in politics or anywhere else, is to choose a great single force 
or single group of forces and then find some man or men sagacious 
and secretive enough to manage the business Vvdthout being dis:- 
covered. And that has been done for a generation in the United 
States. 

Now, the schoolhouse, among other things, is going to break that 
up. Is it not significant that this thing is being erected upon the 
foundation originally laid in America, where we saw from the first 
that the schoolhouse and the church were to be the pillars of the 
Repubhc? Is it not significant that, as if by instinct, we return to 
those sources of liberty undefiled which we find in the common 
meeting place — in the place owned by everybody, in the place where 
nobody can be excluded, in the place to which everybody comes as 
by right? 

And so what we are doing is simply to open what was shut, to let 
the light come in upon places that were dark, to substitute for locked 
doors open doors, for it does not make any difference how many or 
how few come in provided anybody who chooses may come in. So, 
as soon as you have established that principle, you have openings, 
and these doors are open as if they were the floodgates of life. 

FAITH IN PEOPLE JUSTIFIED. 

I do not wonder that men are exhibiting an increased confidence in 
the judgments of the people, because wherever you give the people a 
chance, such as this movement has given them in the schoolhouse, 
they avail themselves of it. This is not a false people, this is not a 



EEGULATING USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS, ETC. 11 

people guided by blind impulses, this is a people who want to think, 
who want to think right, whose feelings are based upon justice, whose 
instincts are for fairness and for the light. 

So what I see in this movement is a recovery of the constructive 
and creative genius of the American people, because the American 
people as a people are so far different from others in being able to 
produce new things, to create new things out of old. 

THIS MOVEMENT FUNDAMENTALLY AMERICAN. 

I have often thought that we overlook the fact that the real sources 
of strength in the community come from the bottom. Do you find 
society renewing itself from the top ? Don't you find society renew- 
ing itself from the ranks of unknown men ? Do you look to the lead- 
ing families to go on leading you ? Do you look to the ranks of the 
men already established in authority to contribute sons to lead the 
next generation ? They may, sometimes they do, but you can't count 
on them; and what you are constantly depending on is the rise out 
of the ranlvs of unknown men, the discovery of men whom you had 
passed by, the sudden disclosure of capacity you had not dreamed of, 
the emergence of somebody from some place of which you had thought 
the least, of some man unanointed from on high, to do the thing that 
the generation calls for. Who would have looked to see Lincoln save 
a nation ? Who that knew Lincoln when he was a lad and a youth 
and a young man — but all the while there was springing up in him 
as if he were connected with the very soil itself, the sap of a nation, 
the vision of a great people, a sympathy so ingrained and intimate 
with the common run of men that he was like the people imperson- 
ated, sublimated, touched with genius. And it is to such sources 
that we must always look. 

No man can calculate the courses of genius, no man can foretell the 
leadership of nations. And so we must see to it that the bottom is 
left open, we must see to it that the soil of the common feeling of the 
common consciousness is always fertile and unclogged, for there can 
be no fruit unless the roots touch the rich sources of life. 

And it seems to me that the schoolhouses dotted here, there, and 
everywhere, over the great expanse of this Nation, will some da}^ 
prove to be the roots of that great tree of liberty which shall spread 
for the sustenance and protection of all mankind. 



THE SCHOOLHOUSE AS THE CIVIC AND SOCIAL CENTER OF THE 

COMMUmTY. 

Address of Mr. EDWARD J. AVARD, of the University of Wisconsin, delivered l)efore the National 
Education Association, department of superintendence, at St. Louis, February 28, 1912. 

"This is going to make the neighborhood feel hke home in spite of 
telephones, newspapers, trolley cars, and all the modern improve- 
ments." 

He was an old banker who spoke and the occasion was the opening 
of a schoolhouse as a social center in a middle-western city. 

"When I was a young man/' he v/ent on, "back in Licldng County, 
Ohio, folks used to meet Hke this in the old drab, weather-board 
schoolhouse. We called it the ' Literary ' ; in some places they called 
it the 'Lyceum'; and in some it was just 'schoolhouse meetings.' 
The old double seats weren't any too comfortable; the light from the 
kerosene lamps, with their tin reflectors, wasn't any too good; but 
there was a human spirit in those gatherings, a man-to-man frankness 
and democracy that made America mean something to us young fel- 
lows. And there was a spirit of neighborhood there — not only in the 
sociables, the spell-downs, and singing schools, but in the meetings 
where folks just listened to speakers, and talked. Getting together 
about things we had in common — whether it was what kind of a 
bridge we should have across the creek, or the tarifl^ — we felt a first- 
hand responsibility for being citizens. 

"I came away to the city. I got into the scramble. I've been at 
it as hard as anybody, and I've succeeded fairly well. But all the 
time there has been something missing. I know a lot of fine people, 
but I don't know my neighbors. I obey the laws and vote at election 
time, but somehow I don't get that feel of being a citizen. The fact 
is, I've lived here 20 years and it has never felt like home. But 
to-night when we're getting together — not as a party nor a sect, nor 
as a particular social set, but just as folks, as citizens, as neighbors — 
in this building which embodies the greatest of our common interests, 
that old feehng comes back, and as we go on with this — I tell you — 
even the city is going to feel like home." 

Unhke most of the great significant movements in modern days, the 
movement to make the schoolhouse the civic and social center of the 
community appeals most strongly to the older, more conservative 
American. 

STATESMAN, MINISTER, ARTIST, TEACHEB, AND YOUTH AGREE. 

The statesman — recognizing the fundamental importance of mak- 
ing the schoolliouse the citizens' common council chamber, the 
working center of an alert and self-informing common citizenship 
organization — welcomes this movement, by as much as he recognizes 
the truth of Washmgton's words, "In proportion as the structure of 
government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public 
opinion should be enhghtened." And Justice Charles E. Hughes, 
of the Supreme Court, says, "I am more interested in what you are 

13 



iM . REGULATING USE OP PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS, ETC. 

doing and what it stands for than in anything else in the world. 
You are buttressing the foundations of democracy. " 

The religious teacher — the priest, the minister— graspino; the vital 
relationship between the leisure .activities and the moral life of the 
community, welcomes the movement to make of the school buildmg 
a common center of wholesom^e recreation. And we find that not 
only religious associations officially mdorse the opening of the school 
buildings for use in the evening, but in many communities the chief 
promoters of social-center development are the clergymen. For 
instance, in the little town of Stanley, Wis., the use of the high-school 
building as a "peoples' club house" came as the result of the united 
leadership of the Lutheran. pastor, the Roman Catholic priest, and 
the Presbyterian minister. The Rev. Richard H. Edwards says, 
"It is unthinkable that the churches should oppose the social-center 
movement. " 

The artist, recognizing that the worthy expression of the American 
soul m forms of beauty can come only with the cultivation and ex- 
pression of music and the drama in an atmosphere democratic and 
tree from the merely commercial motive, sees the vision of the use 
of the common schoolhouse as a democratic center of artistic culture 
and expression for the whole people. And Forbes Robertson says, 
"This is a program worthy of America. " 

School superintendents, prmcipals, and teachers recognize that 
this movement to make the schoolhouse the comprehensive common 
center of the community means improved architecture, better equip- 
ment, more vital interest, and increased support for the school in its 
present service. The National Education Association has unani- 
mously indorsed this movement, and in a hundred communities 
school principals and teachers are lending their service in promoting 
connnunity gatherings of one kind or another which look toward the 
full community use of the schoolhouse. 

But not even the youth, for whom the social center means gymna- 
sium, games, and club opportunities which otherwise he might not 
have, welcomes the social center with more keen appreciation and 
zest than do the older men and women in the average community, 
for to them it is not only an advance, it is also a restoration. 

BOTH ADVANCE AND RESTOBATION. 

Two generations ago, in the average community in the Middle 
West, and quite generally throughout the country, the schoolhouse 
began to be used not only as a center for the education of the chil- 
dren durmg the day, but also in the evening as a center of democracy, 
a center of recreation, a center of neighborhood. 

Histories have to be continually rewritten as our point of view 
shifts from that which regards only military exploits as important 
to that which emphasizes constitutional changes; then to that which 
looks for industrial developments, and, finally, to that which gives 
full recognition to the social life of the past. 

When an American history shall be written from this more intimate 
point of view, it will be recognized that nothing in our national life 
has done so much to foster the American spirit of democracy, of 
spontaneous community feeling, and sense of solidarity as this 



ilEGULATIXG USE OP PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS, ETC. 15 

free association of citizens upon the common ground of civic interest, 
of recreation, and of neighborhood in the schoolhouse in the early- 
days. 

THE ABIDING COMMON INTEREST. 

Only in a time of social strife and strain can we fully value the 
common ties of civic unity and friendliness. It was at the verge of 
the Civil War that Lincoln used these words: ''We are not enemies, 
but friends. We must not be enemies. The mystic chords of mem- 
ory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every 
living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell 
the chorus of the union when again touched, as surely they will be, 
hj the better angels of our nature." In those words Lincoln recog- 
nized as the strongest force that made for unity the memory of how 
the fathers united in the common cause of the Nation's independence. 
If in the face of the straining social and economic problems of our 
time, of the divisive, separating tendencies, we take account of the 
uniting memories of democracy and good will, there is none so pow- 
erful, so characteristically American, so all-inclusive friendly, as this 
common tradition of how we used to get together in the schoolhouse 
in the evening for spell-downs and singing schools, and for first-hand 
discussion of common problems. In this memory to-day is most 
vividly expressed "the true democracy that batters down the walls 
that separate us from each other— the walls of caste distinction and 
prejudice and hatred and religious contempt." In this common 
tradition is brought to us "the proof that we are all of one blood, 
one bounden duty, that all these antisocial prejudices are as shameful 
as illiteracy, and that they will disappear as soon as ever we shall 
come to know each other well." 

CLEAVAGES. 

The schoolhouse in the simple primitive community began to be 
the focal center of the common life. But as the community grew 
older, and especially as it grew more populous, there came in the 
wedge of division, of separation, of specialization. 

Instead of assembling to talk about political questions as matters 
of common interest, we separated into mutually antagonistic partisan 
organizations. We gave up the use of the schoolhouse as a citizens' 
common council chamber. We gave up the common ground of 
friendly man-to-man understanding in politics. We gave up the 
real headquarters of popular government in a democracy. And 
instead of meeting to reason about and understand politics as "the 
science of government," the field of common interest, we have made 
that word synonymous with partisanship. 

We separated also in the pursuit of pleasure and the use of leisure. 
We formed the specialized library and art gallery, the specialized 
dramatic center and music hall. Failing to develop our recreational 
life as a community expression, by expanding the use of the school- 
house where it began, we gave up our recreation largely to commer- 
cialized exploitation, and the wholesome play instinct became the 
prey of the saloon and the vice resort. 

And with the civic cleavage and the recreational diversity came 
the utter break-up of our community social organization, and we went 



16 REGULATING USE OP PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS^, ETC, 

apart to satisfy our outreachiiig friendly instincts by various sorts of 
exclusive cliques and circumscribed brotherhoods and fellowships. 
Abandoning the use of the schoolhouse as a common social center, 
we lost the power to think in terms of the commmiity; the very word 
"society" became restricted in its use, and we began to develop pride 
in the myopia of exclusiveness. 

In other words, w^e yielded to the centrifugal force which flung us 
apart in the following of special party leaders, the pursuit of special 
recreational interests, the development of special association tastes, 
until these things which would have been the means of binding us 
together and unfolding our unity, had v/e kept them in coordination, 
have become the means of oui' separation, our mutual exclusion and 
misunderstanding. 

So, from being a common civic and social center, this community 
building became simply the education place of the children. 

If instead of abandoning the civic, recreational, and social evening 
uses of the schoolhouse by adults and older youth, these uses had been 
promoted and developed and the use for the children had been given 
up, we would be wise to ask whether this common social macliinery 
half used would be doing its full service; just as, having developed 
the children's part of this building's use, we are beginning to "ask 
whether this half of a community institution is making good. 

THE "FAILURE OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL." 

A few years ago, before the Connecticut State Teachers' Associa- 
tion, President Eliot said that, compared with what was hoped vfouid 
result from the establishment of the common school, this most impor- 
tant of all our institutions is a failure, and he gave a catalogue of some 
10 of the common e\dis of our time which the public school fails to 
right. These evils may be grouped under three heads: Misgovern- 
ment in place of intelligent democratic efficiency; dissipation and 
idling in place of constructive use of leisure in recreation; cleavage 
and class feeling in place of social order and public spirit. 

This is a tremendously serious charge, for the distinctive success or 
failure of America lies in our efficiency or failure in collective self- , 
government, our waste or good use of free time, our capacity to weld 
a harmonious whole out of the varied elements of our population and 
to produce a race of socially conscious men and women, the maxim 
of whose choices shall be the common good. 

But before we lay the blame for failing to develop citizenship ca- 
pacity, power for better use of leisure, and for failure to develop social 
consciousness — before v/e lay the blame for these things upon the 
teaching of the children in the schools, it is well to see whether the 
public school as simply an education place for the child is not so 
limited in its essential nature that it can not meet these needs. 

The public school as an institution for the education of the child 
has, of course, its great service to perform, than which nothing can 
be more important, but, granting all possible improvements in per- 
sonality of the teacher, in equipment and in method, the public school 
as an education center for the child does not and can not meet these 
needs. 

The public school as simply an education center for the child does 
not and can not produce "good citizenship," for in its nature as such 



EEGXTLATIITG USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDHSTGS, ETC. 17 

it is and must be a monarchy, a place of training in obedieiice. We 
may veil and soften the authority into the most careful fostering 
guidance, as Froebel did and as Madame Montessori does, but the- 
authority must be there and the law of the school must be obedience. 
Now, ''good citizenship" is more than obedience. Good citizenship 
in a democracy is the consciousness of responsibility, not only for 
obeying the government but for participation in being the government. 

THE SCHOOL OS" PUBLIC SPIRIT. 

It is only through the use of the school building as a civic center — 
that is, through its use as a citizen's council chamber, a legislative 
assembly place, a final supreme court room — that this common insti- 
tution can serve America's greatest need in the development of a 
positive consciousness of democracy. Years ago John Stuart Mill 
said, speaking of such public association on a common ground, 
"Where this school of public spirit does not exist scarcely any sense 
is entertained that private persons owe any duties to society except 
to obey and submit. There is no unselfish sentiment of identification 
with the public. Every thought and feeling, either of interest or of 
duty, is absorbed in the individual or m the ifamily. The man never 
thinks of any collective interest, of any objects to be purchased jointly 
with others, but only in competition with them, and, in some measure, 
at their expense. A neighbor not being an ally nor an associate, since 
he is never engaged in any common undertaking for joint benefit, is 
therefore only a rival." This responsibility for the use of the school- 
house for the development of civic capacity can not be shouldered off 
upon the child. We shall not cease to regard the Government as 
being located at Washington, at the State capital, or at the city hail — 
we shall not get the democratic point of view and sense of responsi- 
bility except as we make the schoolhouse the headquarters of organ- 
ized citizenship, where men frequently assemble to discuss together 
and with their public servants the problems of democracy. 

Not long since, President Taft spoke before the Ohio Society in 
New York City against the proposed placing in the hands of the citi- 
zens of the power to recall the judiciary. No doubt President Taft 
would agree with Lincohi when he says, "Why not repose patient 
trust in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better, is 
there any equal hope ?" But, as President Taft said, the difficulty is 
that the people have (or rather use) "no machinery," other than 
the partisan iiTesponsible newspaper and the biased appeal of the 
orator, for determining how they shall act. The schoolhouse as a 
center of ci^dc discussion offers such a "machinery" as is needed 
to develop intelHgent public opinion. " It is no exaggeration to say, " 
says Henry Campbell, "that in making the schoolhouse the forum of 
the people lies the chief hope of perpetuating the Republic and per- 
fecting its institutions." The Legislature of Wisconsin has recog- 
nized this fundamental civic use of the schoolhouse as a. center of 
democracy, as a right of so great importance, that the school boards 
are required to make provision for this use. And this great function 
of the schoolhouse as a foothold of democracy, a handhold upon 
government, a working center of citizenship, can not be met by the 
school as an education place simply for the child. 



18 EEGULATIls^G THE USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDIN"GS, ETC, 
PUBLIC MORALITY DEMANDS WHOLESOME RECBEATION. 

Second only to the need of developing the citizen's capacity for 
intelligent government, in the great enterprise of America's "making 
good," is the development of a strength-building recreational life, 
"the capacity to have fun without doing wrong." 

Francis H. McLean, after a year's careful investigation of the com- 
munity needs in many parts of America, placed as first in importance 
the need of wholesome recreation. Does the public school, simply as 
the educational center for the child, tend powerfully toward the 
supplanting of vice and dissipation by constructive recreation and 
toward the free devotion of surplus energy to beautiful expression ? 

The pubHc school as simply the education center for the child does 
not and can not meet this need, because in its nature it is restrictive. 
The child in the school is not free to do wrong. The attendance is 
compulsory. There is little or no training in spontaneous play 
expression. 

On the other hand, the opening of the school building as a center of 
entertainment to which one is free to come or not as he will, the 
fostering there of the individual's free selt-realization in recreational 
activities, in musical and dramatic expression, does directly and 
powerfully meet this need. 

In the city of Milwaukee, up to a few years ago, Schlitz beer garden, 
on Vliet Street, was a popular and much frequented resort. To-day, 
if you go there and, entering the old beer hall, go up to the bar, put 
your foot on the rail, and ask for "something" you will receive a book 
from the branch public library. Why the change ? Simply because 
the city has begun to furnish music in the parks. Formerly when a 
man would take his family to hear good music he went to the beer 
garden. He paid the wet tax — not because he wanted the liquor, but 
because he wanted the music, and that was the price. When music 
was furnished free in the public park he v/ent there. The beer garden 
ceased to be profitable and was sold at a low figure to the city. 

The time of greatest need for recreation opportunities is the time of 
greatest leisure — the evening. When every schoolhouse is equipped 
with gymnasium and baths, with, bowling alley and games, with 
music and other forms of entertainment for the evening, the property 
of the evening dissipation places v/ill be "for sale cheap." And 
when, as in Richmond, Ind., the community provides the services of a 
musical director, and, as has been begun in New York City, the 
services of a dramatic director, to develop in the school buildings the 
latent orchestral, choral, and dramatic resources of the communities, 
the level of leisure activities, the recreational taste, and the moral 
character of America will be raised. 

There is a phase of this service of the schoolhouse as a recreation 
center which has a fundamental bearing upon the most vital problem 
of the future of the family in America. Here is possible the acquaint- 
ance, under wholesome environment, of the young men and women 
who will be the fathers and mothers of the next generation. To-day 
there is for very many no such recreation place, which is at once 
free, attractive, and wholesome. 

This common need of elevating the recreational life of the com- 
munity, the schoolhouse, as a center only for the education of the 
child, does not and can not meet. 



JEtEGULATING THE USE OP PUBLIC SCHOOIil BUIDDINGS,-Eg?e. 19 
THE MEANS OF SOCIAL eONSCIOTTSKESS. --- 

And, finally, does or can the public school, used sun ply as an educa- 
tion center for children, develop that social conscio :siTess, that 
breadth of human sympathy, that sense of solidarity and power of 
collective action, upon which all those who do not accept the doctrine 
of ''the class struggle" base their hope of human progress? 

The pubhc school is a socially supported' institution, and yet, as a 
children's education place, it is individualistic in the tendency of its 
training. The main lines of conscious influence, obligation, and re- 
sponsibihty do not run horizontally from child to child, but j)erpen- 
dicularly from the teacher to each child. Tliis is necessarily the 
case. So long as children are under a teacher — and, of course, so long 
as children are children they must be in school under a teacher — the 
chief feelmgs of interest and loyalty will be directed upward toward 
the teacher, rather than outward as social feelings. Moreover the 
whole development of child study is the consideration of the child 
as an individual, and the mam tendency of its training is to develop 
the child's capacities and powers as an individual. 

The individuahstic training is vitally important, but it is also vitally 
important that there should be training in, or at least an opportunity 
for, the development of the conmaunity spirit, the social conscious- 
ness. The community building used only as an education pla,ce for 
the child is a paternal training place. Used as a gathering place for 
for adults for self-education through discussion, recreation together, 
and acquaintance, it is a fraternal training place. Both are neces- 
sary; each supplements the other, and neither can take the place of 
the other. 

The possibihties in the development of social consciousness and the 
power of united action, for the unfoldnient of which the use of the 
schoolhouse as a social center makes vv^a}^, were suggested by Gov. 
Wilson in these words: "It seems to me that Vv^hat is going to be pro- 
duced by this movement — not all at once; by slow and tedious stages, 
• no doubt, but, nevertheless, very certainly in the end — is, in the first 

Elace, a release of common forces now undiscovered, now somewhere 
anked up, now somewhere unavailable; the removal of barriers to 
the common understanding, the opening of mind to mind, the clari- 
fication of the au" and the release in that clarified air of forces that 
can five in it; and just so certainly as you release those forces you 
make easier the fundamental problem of modern society, which is the 
problem of accommodating the various interests in modern society 
to one another." 

The school as a center for the education for the child tends to unfold 
individual capacity; it does not and can not awake the dormant 
social possibilities of a concerted common life. 

The movement to make the schoolhouse the civic and social center 
of the community is, however, not by any means merely the result of 
the observation on the part of the educator, that the present service 
of the school is inadequate as a training place for democrac;y-, for 
better use of leisure, and for social consciousness; and the decision, 
following that observation, that the schoolhouse shall become the 
civic and social center. To be sure, this is an important factor, and 
the welcoming of this movement by school men will help to hasten 
its realization. Bat the fact is, that the movement to make the 



20 KEGULATIlsrG THE USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS^ ETC. 

schoolhouse the focal center of the community has in itself the char- 
acter of the institution which it aims to develop. That is to say, the 
social center movement is a focalizing of many movements whose 
aim is the public welfare. 

THE CONSTRUCTIVE PROGRAM. 

Men and women form local or national organizations to promote 
the pubhc welfare along various hues. They work away at their 
special problems for a while. Then they make the discovery that 
with communities, as mth individuals, that v/hich is really beneficial 
is not what is done for one, but what one does for himself, and that 
the wider use of the schoolhouse offers the convenient, economical 
means whereby the community can secure for itself the improvements 
in which they are interested, or by this means the community can 
protect itself against the evils they are fighting. So the members of 
one of these organizations start to agitate for the opening of the 
schoolhouse, and when they do they usually find that other associa- 
tions working on other lines of public service have made the same 
discovery. 

The fact that 1 1 different organizations, of various sorts, united to 
secure the opening of the schoolhouses in Rochester, N. Y., is an 
illustration of this gathering of forces into a common movement. 
This is typical of the movement throughout the country. It is a 
focusing of the efforts of various organizations which aim to pro- 
mote the public weffare. 

For instance, in nearly every community there is a group of men 
in whom the spirit of revolt against corruption becomes aggressive. 
■When evidences of "graft" appear, the first impulse is to catch some- 
bo-dy and put him in jail, and for a time that seems the final remedy. 
After a while, however, the men who are engaged in this pursuit begin 
to dig down to find the cause of the condition, and Mr. A. Leo Weil, 
the prosecutor of the recent graft cases in Pittsburgh, sums up his 
study of the whole subject by saying that, '' The indictment of grafters 
is the indictment of the community." Then he points out that the 
cause lies in the condition developed since we left the use of the 
schoolhouse as a center of civic expression. "With the increase of 
official business there has come to the individual a decrease in the 
opportunity to participate, either by the expression of his v^dll or of 
his opinion, notwithstanding the greater necessity for such expres- 
sion." So in Buffalo, William Wright, who in that city and in the 
State legislature for years has fought the corrupting influences of 
special interests, turns to the schoolhouse for the remedy. "The 
men who have special interests get together to look out for their 
special interests. Only as the citizens get together and organize to 
look out for the common interest will the public weKare be steadily 
protected." 

Wherever "reform" movements reach the constructive stage they 
tend to become factors in the movement to make the schoolhouse the 
civic and social center of the community, for their leaders recognize 
that this is the means of securing that civic health through civic 
exercise which will fortify the body politic against disease. Judge 
Lindsey says, "We have been fighting the beast; you (social-center 
promoters) are making the dirty animal impossible." 



EEGIJLATIN"G THE USE OP PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS, ETC. 21 
FORMATION BETTES, THAN BEFORMATION. 

Not only the fighters against political evils but those who are inter- 
ested in various specific measures of improvement are turning to 
the establishment of the use of the schoolhouse as a citizenship organ- 
ization center and civic forum. Whether the improvement projected 
be the adoption of another form of government for the city, the ap- 
proval of a city plan, the matter of a bond issue, or some other special 
measure, the men who seek to wake their communities to take some 
action of civil improvement are comirg to recognize the benefit and 
the saving of energy that would come if there were the opportunity 
to present the proposed measure for discussion in established com- 
munity civic forums ; and these men combine their request with that 
of the "reformers'' to open the schoolhouse. 

The uniting of the religious and moral leaders of the community 
in urging the opening of the schoolhouses for clean evening recrea- 
tion, has been spoken of. In one city, during the past year, a leading 
clergyman said, "Some time ago, when I began to recognize the need 
of a recreation place, especially for tie young people, I thought of 
building a parish house in connection with my church. I then 
thought that it would be more economical to unite forces with others 
in the building of a Y. M, C. A. To-day I see that the money that a 
Y. M. C. A. plant would cost would go very much farther and benefit 
a hundredfold more people if it were devoted to the equipment, 
supervision, and opening of the schoolhouses for physical training, 
club work, and entertainment." 

The Playground and Recreation Association of America began 
with chief emphasis upon out-of-door recreation facilities, but it is 
now actively promoting the opening of the schoolhouses for wider 
use. Dr. Luther H. Gulick, the first president of that association, 
has shown his perception of the fundamental significance and neecl 
of the social center in these words: "Only upon a basis of personal 
understanding and mutual confi.dence is efficient and coherent social 
action possible. This is the foundation of democracy. Communi- 
ties must have, therefore, materieJ and social machinery by v/hich 
various classes shall come to know each other; some instrument that 
shall cross-section racial, financial, and social strata; something that 
shall go beneath these and touch fundamental human interests. 
* * * The machinery most natural, as well as most available, is 
the public-school system." 

But not only do these and other organizations which are formed to 
promote general civic, moral, and recreational improvement unite in 
indorsing and advocating the opening of the schoolhouse as a com- 
munity center; there is also the active indorsement of those who are 
engaged in various specific forms of public service. In nearly every 
city and town the public library stands ready to cooperate by making 
the schoolhouse a neighborhood branch library. This is how being 
done in Grand Rapids and other towns. The cooperation of the 
Riclunond Art Association is back of the movement to make the 
schooUiouses of that city neighborhood art galleries. The move- 
ment to make the schoolhouse a community music center has back 
of it the interest of such men as Walter Damrosch. The National 
Board of Censorship of Motion Picture Films is promoting the idea of 
making the schoolliouse the neighborhood motion-picture theater. 



22 EEGULATIKG THE USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS, ETC, 

In some cases organizations cooperate in maintaining special exten- 
sions of the use of schoolliouses. For instance, the Rochester Dental 
Society maintained the service of the first dental office to be opened 
in a schoolhouse in that city. Of course the societies formed to pro- 
mote the public welfare in rural communities are practically all in 
agreement with the recommendation of the Country Life Commission, 
looking toward community-center development in the country. 

THIS CENTURY'S DOMINANT FORCE CENTRIPETAL. 

But the social-center movement has its roots deeper than the recog- 
nition of its need on the part of students of public problems in Amer- 
ica. It is the expression of the great fact that the tide has turned. 
The dominant force of this century is not centrifugal but centripetal. 
We have passed the time of social analysis and are entered upon the 
time of social synthesis. As Dr. Elmer E. Brown puts it, "The very 
forces that have been drawing us apart into groups and classes have 
been making us sick of artificial separations." Little Jack Horner is 
growing up, and he no longer regards it as praiseworthy to pull a 
plum from a pie while he occupies a seat in the corner. For 50 years 
we have devoted our best energy to the construction of a fabric of 
machinery by which things would work together for good. We are 
now turning to the development of machinery by which folks may 
work together, and think together, and enjoy together for good. 
And the social-center movement is assuming the force of a practical 
American common-sense idea which is generally held. 

There is not space to deal at length with the question of adminis- 
tration. The National Education Association included in its resolu- 
tion indorsing the social-center movement the statement that the 
administration should be kept in the hands of the constituted school 
authorities. Obviously tliis points to the necessity of the school 
board or trustees having a comprehension of the values in the use of 
the schoolhouse as a center of democracy, a center of recreation, a 
center of neighborhood, as well as an education center for children. 

SOCIAL CENTER "SPELLS" ECONOMY. 

The cost to a city of having a school board which does not recognize 
it as a duty to allow and encourage the largest possible community use 
of the schoolhouse is illustrated by the experience of Chicago. 
Tv/enty years ago the Chicago School Board refused requests to allow 
the schoolliouses to be used for evening club activities and recreation. 
The movement to make provision for community social and recrea- 
tional needs was then turned to the building of special community 
buildings to meet these needs. Since that time Chicago has spent 
nearly $20,000,000 in securing these duplicate plants. Had this 
amount of money been devoted to increasing the equipment and 
developing the use of the existing community buildings and grounds, 
instead of having 17 of these recreation centers, the city of Chicago 
would have an adequate community center developed in each district 
in the city, and its school system would be a model. 

But to-day the average school board would not take such a stand. 
On the contrary, there are many school boards whose members recog- 
nize the possibilities and benefits of social-center development. For 
instance, Mr. Joseph Scott spoke not only as one of the counsel in the 



BEGULATING THE XJSE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS^. ETC. .23 

McNamara case but also as president of the Los Angeles School Board 
when in an address before the Southern California Teachers' Associa- 
tion, just after the confession, he pointed out that the problem of 
industrial control is the problem of this century, than v/hich there is 
only one greater, and this greater problem is whether in the solution 
of the economic question we shall preserve our civic unity and our 
common sense of justice and good will, our fundamental human 
friendliness, and, said he, "the j)ossibility for the right solution of 
this greater problem lies chiefly in the use of this community insti- 
tution — the school." 

It may be said that the responsibility for promoting social-center 
development lies back of the school board; that this body as a rule 
has no funds for this extension. In view of the fact that'the school 
board is, in most cases, free to make up its own budget, it has within 
its hands the j)ower of correcting this lack, and, as a rule, is able to 
make a beginning mth funds in hand. 

THE SOCIAL ENGIWEEE, NECESSABY. 

The first step is, of course, the engagement of a man as an assistant 
to the superintendent, to take charge of this field of the wider use of 
the school plant. The average superintendent has his hands full with 
the regular work of the school. The new work demxands a social engi- 
neer. The man who occupies this position should, in the fiist place, 
be familiar with the beginnings that have been made in social-center 
development throughout the country. He should grasp, of course, 
the idea of the use of the schoolhouse as a center for community 
organization of citizens, for this organization is the democratic foun- 
dation of the social center. He should recognize that he and his 
assistants in the various neighborhoods are not teachers, but servants 
of these neighborhood civic clubs, aiding in the preparation of pro- 
grams, the work of publicity, and otherwise serving the owners of the 
buildings. He should be familiar with the methods found successful 
in the use of the schoolhouse as a lecture center, as this has been 
developed in New York and other cities. He should know the expe- 
rience of Los Angeles, Worcester, and the other towns which use the 
schoolhouses as polling places. He should be famihar with the use of 
the schoolhouse as an art gallery and music center as it has begun in 
Richmond, Ind. He should know the use of the library as it is in 
Grand Rapids, and should grasp the possibihty of making the libra- 
rian's desk the local employment office and information bureau as this 
was begun in Rochester. He should be familiar with the school- 
museum system of St. Louis. He should know the methods of boys' 
and girls' club organization worked out, for instance, in New York. 
He should be familiar with the gymnasium equipment and methods 
of direction which have been found satisfactory in Cincinnati, and he 
should know the various methods in the recreational use of the school- 
house as these have been developed in New York, Chicago, Columbus, 
and other cities. 

But the man who is qualified for this position must recognize that 
the beginnings that have been made are only fragmentary and that 
the opportunity in this field is for constructive pioneering. 

The training for this position should, of course, include an under- 
standing of the technique of the school in its present use, so that there 



24 EEGULATIK"G USE OP PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS^ ETC. 

may be a correlation between the day and evening use of the com- 
munity building. He should, of course, also have a thorough prac- 
tical grounding in sociology. But v/hile the work of a social engineer 
is like that of a mechanical engineer or a civil engineer, in requiring 
technical knowledge for efficiency, unlike these, it chiefly demands 
qualities of personality. 

Obviously, the first requirement of the head of a staff of social- 
center secretaries boys' and girls' club directors, gymnasium direc- 
tors, librarians, musical and dramatic directors, is the capacity for 
organization and selection. 

Some materials are conductors of electric currents and some are 
nonconductors. Some men are conductors and some nonconductors 
of social currents. A social engineer is a human being serving other 
human beings as a "social missing link." He must not only be 
common in his sympathies and understanding, free from all petti- 
ness and bias, he must also be a ''conductor." 

But, above all, he must have the idea and be able to inspire in liis 
fellow public servants in this work the idea of social service, not at 
all in the usual sense of these words, but in the frank recognition 
that he and they are the hired men and hired women of the people 
who pay their salaries. 

And, finally, he must have a grasp of the social-center idea in its 
big significance, that deep significance which was suggested by the 
banker, quoted at the beginning of this paper, in the words, "This 
is going to make the neighborhood seem like home." For this is 
the fundamental significance of the social-center movement. 

The education of the child is a family function. The man and 
woman began to be human when they got together for the educa- 
tion of the child. It was through their association together upon 
the common ground and under the common roof of the child's edu- 
cation that they learned cooperation, mutual consideration, affec- 
tion. It was through their association together upon this common 
ground under the common roof consecrated to the education of the 
child that they learned to think in terms of each other's welfare, 
that they developed the home feeling -within the little unit group of 
the family. 

Now, out from the household have gone the industries and the arts, 
out into the street, the shop, and the store. And out in that realm 
the rule is caveat emptor and suspicion and selfishness. We haven't 
learned to think in terms of the larger group. But out there in the 
public school is that claim stake of our faith that the larger group 
of the neighborhood has in it the potential quaUty of a household. 
Out there is the education of the child. As we get together under that 
common roof, upon that common ground consecrated to the educa- 
tion of the child which made us human in the smaller group, we shall 
develop, through association and acquaintance, the household sense 
of common interest, of mutual consideration, within this larger group, 
which will make the neighborhood, even in the city, seem like home, 
not only to the old folks who remember how we used to do, but to all 
of us. 

The modern social-center movement is the conscious building up of 
the characteristic institution of America which the pioneers spon- 
taneously began when they estabhshed the public schoolhouse and 



EEGULATING USE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS; ETC. 25 

made it the common place of the whole neighborhood group, as the 
home is the common place of the whole household. 

The fathers clove the wildeniesa 

And made a clearino- here, 
Then at its heart, a friendly roof 

They joined their hands to rear. 
And here they met and talked, and planned 

A larger common weal. 
Their futui'e we are living now, 

Here — we their purpose feel. 

The little old drab school is gone; 

Its spirit must not go! 
The power it gave the pioneers 

We need, far more, to know. 
Heavy the tasks that call our hands, 

Divided strengths are small; 
Uniting here for common things 

Each finds the might of all. 

o 



LIBRPIRY OF CONGRESS 



019 605 247 1 



